By Shaenon K. Garrity

Menu

All right, Dave’s funeral! This one’s way too wordy, but I like it anyway. The idea that absolutely no one would miss Dave strains credulity, especially since we later learn that he has a family with which he occasionally keeps in touch, but no one in the strip questions it.

Small text in the first panel: “Chris Ellmann reads these.”

I don’t know how there ended up being so much Unitarian Universalist stuff in Narbonic; as I’ve mentioned before, I’m Catholic. Originally, it was just to mess with Dave Barker, like half the material in the strip, but by this point I clearly just wanted to draw Artie in little bitty flaming chalice robes. I offer no apologies for this.

Artie is Unitarian because he appreciates a free and intellectually open theological framework within which to engage moral and spiritual questions. Dave is Unitarian because it doesn’t make any demands on his free time. I can appreciate both approaches.

Yes, that’s Sparky the Penguin from “This Modern World” on Helen’s T-shirt. I have no idea why. We may have been doing something related to the strip at the Cartoon Art Museum.

Sometimes I think Artie’s basic sense of decency is just his way of rebelling against his upbringing. I still really like his defeated posture in the last panel.

Helen and Mell are wearing the same funeral attire they wore in a previous Sunday strip, except that for some reason I didn’t color Mell’s dress black this time. I colored in Helen’s black lab coat with Photoshop fills, a bad idea. I’m soooo lazy about coloring things in.

I don’t have much to say about this strip, which is just about piling more needless abuse on Dave. But Artie’s little minister outfit is still adorable.

If you think this is wordy, you should’ve seen the rough draft. I cut a lot of Mell’s monologue. It was pretty bad. I did, however, manage to retain a reference to the fact that Mell used to wear both checked and plaid skirts, before settling on the checked for every strip. That’s important, dammit.

I’ve got this strange fascination with Dar Williams. I’ve worked references into Smithson, too, for some reason.

For what it’s worth, I do find this strip strangely touching.

Man, that third panel would look really keen if not for my crummy Photoshop coloring. Oh, well. I’ll figure this out eventually.

Another really wordy strip, with some cramped lettering. Maybe I should’ve stretched Dave’s pathetic funeral out to a second week. I like Helen’s eulogy, though. It’s pretty sweet, for a mad scientist. And, not for the first time, the idea is floated that Helen is only upset because she didn’t get to kill Dave herself.

Moesday’s Comic: There’s a corpse in a mad biologist’s laboratory, and all they’re going to do is bury it? Obviously the staff of Narbonics Labs has more reverence for their late friend than they’d previously let on.

I for one am certain that Dave would find it completely appropriate that a cartoon rodent would be delivering his eulogy. ‘Tis a fitting capstone to a life of pop-cultural consumption.

I like the idea of becoming a mail-order minister. Now, is Artie truly interested in a free and intellectually open theological framework within which to engage moral and spiritual questions, or a tax deduction? Remember, he was originally designed to do Helen’s taxes.

You recall correctly. They’re still around, and anyone can become a minister through them. http://www.ulc.org/ For a $5 donation, they’ll even let you choose a clerical title. Much cheaper than Scientology! {huge grin}

I had never realized that that was a black lab coat (wait, that sounds like dog fur) and not just a generic dressy black coat. It totally makes sense that Helen would have appropriately mad-scientific funeral attire, but it’s still funny.

Wednesday’s Comic: That isn’t really what “mortal coil” means, by the way. Also, one of Helen’s locks is missing in panel 1. But on the plus side, I genuinely adore the subtle surreality of a priest using a very large flower as a staff.

Thursday’s Comic: It’s funny… I thought I’d be noticing the absence of Dave’s unique voice and character potential by now, but it appears that the Narbonic comic is capable of functioning perfectly well without him. The recent inclusion of Artie, and his relationship with the other surviving characters, has almost made Dave irrelevant.

Certainly the reader at this point would consider Dave’s return increasingly unlikely.

I’m curious about something: Mell says she was “barred from college events due to that time [she] went around kicking in windows.” How does this fit in with her later popularity and sweet–albeit feigned–disposition if she’s a documented vandal?

Furthermore, ginchy is a good word and should be heard more frequently in daily conversation.

Friday’s Comic: It’s about time we received some further insight into Mell’s character, or at least her voice. Despite the necessity of keeping her in the background for most of the time, she does lend a certain kind of variety to the strip.

Reb Wright: Mell says she was “barred from college events due to that time [she] went around kicking in windows.” How does this fit in …

You mean, as compared the time she’ll bring live weaponry to the CS department’s fragfest?

Actually, that and related incidents may be the key — kicking in windows is “sane” enough for people to remember, while her later abuses are outrageous enough to invoke the Mad Scientist Protection Act, and disappear into Official Impossibility.